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PHOENIX FALL REAL ESTA TE/HOMEIncomplete, And Offers Its %u25a0 awii f i ' ' II ' U a %u25a0 %u2022 ^ x B u l j Q h W l v/vvn o u iu u u ii xu m e * iuu!v!u%u201carbitration would result in increases of only a few percent.%u201d Pointing to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Messinger said: %u201cWe are now losing second and third generations of new entrepreneurs. It is no longer the Mom and Pop stores that moved in in the 1970s.%u201d She also criticized the commission for not opening their sessions to the public.EXPLAIN VACANCY RATESCouncilmember Miriam Friedlander accused the commission of walking away from the major problem areas. %u201cWhy was the study not done where we had the problems?%u201d she asked. Altschuler countered her charges saying that the study had covered a full range of city-wide conditions. Friedlander angrily rebuked his answer, asking why he was unable to give an explanation for a 30 percent vacancy that she said existed in the Lower East Side. %u201cI cannot hold your study valid if you do not even know the answer to that question,%u201d she remarked angrily. %u201cWhat you have offered us here is a very fine protection of market rents and turnover,%u201d she said.Shiffman, presenting the minority report, told the committee that drafters of the m ajority report were overly committed to a free-market ideology. %u201cI am not opposed to a free market economy but we must also recognize its weaknesses and recognize the responsibility of the government to step in when it doesn%u2019t work,%u201d he said. Shiffman stressed again that the dissenting report did not recommend rent control, but mandatory negotiation and binding arbitration as an intermediary step. He also said the citywide percentage of merchants who had said on the survey that they were concerned about being unable to renegotiate their leases was inaccurate because many tenants were not aware of their predicament or concerned until the last year of their term. %u201cWe must look at the issue qualitatively as well as quantitatively,%u201d he stressed.Gerges responded to his testimony by pointing out that the two reports had a common denominator. %u201cYou both say there is a problem that something should be done about. I am impressed with your suggestion because the end result has to be how to get the landlord and tenant together,%u201d he said, and asked Shiffman if he believed the data compiled in the survey was accurate. Shiffman approved the data as reliable but questioned the means of interpretation. In response to charges made by the majority report that government interference wouldhinder development of renovation of commercial space, Shiffman said that residential controls had not hindered New York relative to development in other cities.%u201c If there are tough legislative restrictions, Dean Altschuler might be right in his assessment that it would impede development,%u201d Donovan said. Shiffman denied the validity of that proposal on grounds that he hoped that evictions would not escalate while the City Council debated what action to take. The commission%u2019s minority has called for an immediate moratorium onevictions due to failure to renegotiate a lease until the Council has worked out a solution.The Council will be holding several hearings on the issue of retail businesses in the fall, while its Policy and Research Unit continues on with their own study. After completing the analysis, policy options suggested by the majority and minority commission members and initiative developed by the council staff will be considered.Real Estate Board Says Government Should Keep ItsHands Off New York%u2019s Upwardly Mobile Rent PricesBY LIZ KOCHThe best medicine for New York%u2019s retail businesses is to proceed without government interference, or so surmises the Real Estate Board of New York in its report arguing the case against commercial rent control. Arthur Margin, vice president of the board, presented the report at a June hearing of the City Council%u2019s Committee on Economic Development and opposed the policy options put forth by both the majority and minority members of the Mayor%u2019s Commission on Small Businesses.The report points to the current boom in New York%u2019s retail market and claims that any government interference ranging from rent control to mandatory mediation %u201cwould address a problem faced by very few businessmen by enacting a solution that would do great harm to the city as a whole.%u201dIt is New York%u2019s large, flexible supply of retail space that is the underpinning of the City%u2019s revitalized retail markets, the report states, by allowing property owners to combine or divide their space, change its useand engage in new construction. For tenants, changing neighborhoods allow a freedom of movement into areas formerly less utilized. While retail markets may have witnessed rental increases in the past, the report says that rents have stabilized in the past year.The report calls the gentrified areas of Park Slope and the Upper West Side as being %u201catypical of the bulk of the City%u2019s neighborhoods,%u201d rather %u201cthe problems facing most neighborhoods is a lack of investment and declining values,%u201d and goes on to say that: %u201c Rent regulations of any sort would freeze the market, robbing it of the flexibility upon which it currently thrives.%u201dRegulations would affect the market by lowering returns on property and thereby property value, and damaging assessment growth as well as the maintenance of the City%u2019s building stock. Monies collected by commercial rents often maintain residential rent controlled properties, a source that would no longer be available. Another problem brought on, the report states, would be a rigidity in market space that wouldrestrict a business%u2019s ability to expand and would restrict a landlord from subdividing an underutilized space with a guaranteed tenancy.The report also challenges claims that the current rise in rents are reducing businesses dominated by small-scale entrepreneurs such as food shops, bakeries and drug stores. %u201c New services, such as video stores are the family-business retail opportunities of this decade, and are spreading throughout the City,%u201d it says. It also points to an increase in retail payment employment over the last five years, especially in Manhattan areas where rents are high.The conclusion reached in the report is that retail rent controls are not only %u201ccounterproductive, they are unfair,%u201d not only to property owners but %u201cthey would constitute a barrier to the entry of new business by giving existing merchants, however inefficient, an unfair advantage over newcomers.%u201dOnly one name in Browqstone Insurancestands for...%u2022 Experience%u2022 Innovation%u2022 Service%u2022 Lower CostBR0WNST0NE AGENCY INC.111 John Street/New York, N. Y 10038 (212) 962-5620I------ H------INSITE INTRODUCES THE NEW15 NEWLY RENOVATED STORESON FORT GREENE%u2019S LANDMARK SHOPPING STREETCOMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE BROKER404 Vanderbilt AvenueBrooklyn, New York 11238 (718)783-3313designresourcesFor ComprehensiveArchitectural andEngineering ServicesExpansions/Conversions Modernizations New Facilities Construction Management Violations RemovedThs Design Resources Group Architects, P.C.7 1 8 /2 3 7 -6 8 9 2Got a Point ofView About aLocal Issue?The Ph09Pivletters on all localissues to our SoundOff Column. Write:Sound Off, 395 AtlanticAve., Brooklyn 11217.September 11, 1986, THE PHOENIX, Page 19